


Human Error (I Heard You)

by GrayceAdamsArchive



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms
Genre: Angst, F/M, HLV, Love Confessions, M/M, S3, Season 3 Spoilers, Violence, sherlock is shot again, sherlock's way of saying love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-04-11
Updated: 2014-04-11
Packaged: 2018-01-18 23:39:10
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,973
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1447147
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GrayceAdamsArchive/pseuds/GrayceAdamsArchive
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A swath of dark fabric fell in front of John’s vision, dark grey and purple and he looked up reflexively as the split second between the murderer’s gun being fired and the bullet reaching its target ended.</p><p>Eyes the color of the galaxy stared back at him wild with panic, and then Sherlock’s body jerked forward with the force of the impact, knocking him into John and both of them to the ground.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Human Error (I Heard You)

It was just another case. It was always just another case. A serial murderer, four dead bodies, and Sherlock was dragging John out of bed at three AM because he’d made a mental leap and they needed to go _now,_ to catch the killer before he struck again.

So John had just sighed and gone along with him, grabbing his gun from where he kept it in his bedside drawer and shrugging his coat on over his jumper. Then they were off, taking a cab to an empty warehouse, and finding one of the storage rooms had been used recently, used to store the boots and clothes and taser the killer used when he abducted his victims. There were boxes full of sawdust and empty plastic stacked against one wall, and some skeletal shelves along the other, with trash and piles of old fabric on them. The murder weapon was there, too, in one of the open crates, and John was pulling out his phone to text Lestrade when the door to the warehouse opened, squealing on its hinges.

John cursed silently and grabbed Sherlock’s arm, dragging him into the smallest, darkest corner of the room he could find, between some of the shelving and the wall. There was no where to go, no where to hide. They were trapped, most likely by the psycho murderer who was probably here to collect his things in order to claim another victim.

“Stay down,” he hissed at Sherlock, who was peering around the shelving in an attempt to see out the door of the storage room at the owner of the approaching footsteps. John chewed his lower lip nervously, wishing there was enough space in their hiding spot for him to reach back and grab his gun. Sherlock fidgeted as the footsteps got louder, then snatched a rotten, damp blanket from among the scattered bit of rubbish on the shelf at knee-level. The detective crouched down and pulled john with him, throwing the blanket over them both. It wasn’t an ideal hiding technique, and they couldn’t see anything as their eyes adjusted to the darkness of being under the mildewed cloth, but it was better than nothing. They could only listen as the footsteps came into the room.

Sherlock and John froze, taking small, silent breaths.

It was only the third case they’d done together since John had taken to sleeping in his bed at 221b rather than lie next to Mary in their home and suffer through the painful silence stretching between them. John hadn’t felt this alive in years, despite the fact that death hovered only meters away.

Slowly the doctor’s eyes adjusted to the dark as the unseen villain dug through the boxes and crates for the murder assemble. Sherlock’s face was only a few inches from John’s the detective’s eyes hazy in the way that meant he was listening hard, but they were also wide and dilated. John put that down to the fact that it was dark under their improvised hiding spot, and not because Sherlock was staring at his lips while they were close enough to be tasting each other’s breath. John tried not to let that though distract him, to not think about the fact that Sherlock’s exhale tasted like mint toothpaste and sweet tea (he also tried not to think about the fact that he hadn’t had the chance to brush his teeth before leaving the flat; he probably didn’t taste or smell quite as appealing as Sherlock did). The murderer was shuffling around, presumably changing into their murder outfit (Jesus did that sound cheesy or what? John thought, biting his lip to keep an adrenalin-fueled giggle from escaping). Sherlock’s eyes seemed to get impossibly darker, the haziness disappearing as he apparently stopped listening to the the suspect (but at this point, who doubted that they were the murderer anyway, certainly not John) and started staring at John’s mouth intently. The doctor licked his lips automatically, heat pooling unexpectedly in his gut. He swayed forward without meaning to, bringing his face close enough to Sherlock’s for their noses to brush. Sherlock exhaled again, shaky and trembling, and John swallowed hard as color stained the detective’s cheeks.

Then the door to the storage room slammed shut, and they both jerked away from each other in surprise. The murderer was gone, and Sherlock quickly cast aside the blanket and sprung to his feet.

“Come on, John!” The doctor wasn’t sure if he was imagining it or not, but Sherlock’s voice seemed to waver in a rather uncharacteristic way, giving him pause. The detective refused to look at him, though, striding for the door. John pulled his gun out of the back of his jeans and followed the detective, pushing what had just transpired between them to the back of his mind to ponder over later.

The sky was just beginning to lighten as they exited the warehouse, Sherlock following their suspect with John hot on his heels. But it seemed the murderer was aware he was being followed, and broke into a run, turning quickly down a side street. Sherlock bolted after him and John swore aloud, quickening his pace to a sprint. They followed the man for almost a mile before he got far enough ahead that he deemed it safe to turn back and shoot at them. John cried out, warning Sherlock out of the path of the bullet. But it wasn’t Sherlock that the man was shooting at all. His aim wavered from Sherlock, who was unarmed, to John, who had paused to raise his own weapon. The suspect’s shot went off, and John’s brain surged with adrenalin as he realized he was going to be shot. Again.

 _Small caliber handgun, easily concealed_ , his brain supplied as death sped forward to meet him.

 _Aimed for my chest, not stupid enough to aim for my head, too small of a target over a distance_ , he thought.

 _Shit, I’m going to die_.

And then a swath of dark fabric fell in front of John’s vision, dark grey and purple and he looked up reflexively as the split second between the murderer’s gun being fired and the bullet reaching its target ended.

Eyes the color of the galaxy stared back at him wild with panic, and then Sherlock’s body jerked forward with the force of the impact, knocking him into John and both of them to the ground.

“ _Jesus_ , Sherlock!” John gasped, scrambling out from beneath the detective and reaching for where he’d dropped the gun. Glancing up the street, he saw that they’d lost their suspect, but John had more important things to worry about.

“John,” Sherlock groaned, laying on his stomach, a dark stain spreading across the back of his coat with alarming speed.

“Fuck, _Sherlock_ ,” John cursed again, fumbling for his phone and dialing 999. “Yes, hello, I need an ambulance right now, my friend’s been shot.” He glanced up, looking for street signs to give the woman on the line their location. After that he ignored her request to stay on the phone and dropped his mobile, careless for its well being, and tore off his coat, pressing it over the hole in Sherlock’s Belstaff, trying to keep him from bleeding out.

“What the _hell_ did you do that for, you great bloody idiot!” John demanded, glaring furiously down at Sherlock’s pale, resigned face as fear made the doctor’s heart gallop in his chest. The detective sighed. “This is the second time you’ve been fucking _shot_ in four months! You’re not even fully recovered yet! What the fuck were you _thinking?_ ”

“Human error,” Sherlock said, as the sun broke over the horizon and stained the sky above their heads red and gold. John’s heart stopped as the detective’s eyes closed.

~*~

John paced the waiting room of the hospital, waiting out the four hour surgery until a doctor came out to see him.

“How is he?” John demanded. “Is he….?”

“Mr. Holmes will recover fully, provided he isn’t shot a third time,” the doctor said, a tall, dark-haired woman with a name tag that read “Johnson” on her lapel. Johnson wore a disapproving frown as she continued, “He shouldn’t have been out chasing criminals as it was, but luckily the bullet missed his spine, but he’s had some minor damage to his organs… _.again_. But nothing too serious. He should be able to go back home after a week or two.” John nodded, but knew Sherlock would probably try to escape again within a few hours of being conscious. The man hated hospitals. Johnson went on, and John listened automatically, nodding at appropriate moments, but his thoughts were several rooms away, where Sherlock lie recovering.

 _Human error_ , he’d said. Surely….surely he hadn’t meant…?

~*~

Oh, but he _had_. John knew he had, the instant Sherlock took a deep breath, standing there across from him, face determined, hands clasped behind his back and rocking back on his heels as he only did when he was nervous.

“John, there’s something...I should say, something I….I’ve meant to say _always_ , and then never have. Since it’s unlikely that we’ll ever meet again, I might as well say it now.” John’s heart seized, and he struggled to keep his face neutral. He thought it might have came out angry, because there was hope in him, so much hope, and also so much anger, and _pain_.

 _Not like this. I never wanted to hear it like this_ , part of him wept.

 _Say it!_ Another part of him cried. _For God’s sake, say it! Say it for both of us!_

Another deep breath. And then:

“Sherlock’s is actually a girl’s name.”

For a moment, John couldn’t do anything. And then he laughed. He laughed because it’s not funny at all, he laughed because if he didn’t laugh, he’d end up _sobbing_. And Sherlock smiled, a tight, amused smile that did not touch his eyes, which look like something was breaking behind them. They bantered a bit more, and John’s heart ached. To never have this again….this easy friendship, so much a part of him that it felt like jumping in a lake and sinking right to the bottom to take a deep breath to think of living without it.

 _It won’t be much like living at all will it?_ Part of him whispered, and he crushed it mercilessly, refusing to go back to that person after the Fall, to that man that was dead but still walking around.

And then Sherlock was holding out his hand, and all John can do is stare at it, because surely, surely _this_ would not be the end, _this_ would not be their last interaction. Surely, their whole friendship, their whole almost-something-more, would not come down to _this?_

“To the very best of times, John,” Sherlock said firmly, his eyes bright and his face pinched and firm. John took his hand, shaking it. They stood with their hands locked like that for a few beats, and John was screaming inside.

_Don’t let it end like this! **Do** something!_

Then Sherlock pumped his hand one last time, and then let go.

John watched him walk away, back straight, coat repaired from the bullet that had pierced it so many weeks ago. Almost as if it had never happened. But John remembered. He remembered what had happened, what had been said. And so, he said it out loud, too. His voice was soft but it carried on the breeze to where Sherlock was mounting the stairs.

“ _Human error_.”

The detective paused, just barely paused, and did not look at John, because if he did, he would not be able to keep walking. But they both know what that pause meant, as Sherlock disappeared inside of the jet that was to bear him away.

_**I heard you.** _


End file.
